


I'll build a fort for you

by ElStark



Series: The Pillow-Fort Series [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Sarah Rogers, POV Steve Rogers, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 01:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElStark/pseuds/ElStark
Summary: Building a fort is their way of taking care of each other, since Sarah showed them how to build one.-*-[“No one took me of course, they all know who I am… ‘Sarah’s sickly one,’” he smiled, small and bitter. “’Can’t take you, too small, too weak, too sick, too much of a hassle.’” He shrugged, “I know they’re right, seems all I’m good for is being a burd-”“Don’t you say it, Rogers.” Bucky spat through his teeth, “or I swear on all that’s holy imma kick your ass until you take it all back.”Steve clenched his jaw and looked away.“It’s not true.” Bucky insisted, “al’right? It’s utter bullshit. What do you think it’d be like for your ma? Huh? Me?”Steve turned to look at him straight in the eye, and Bucky barely caught the hitch in his breath; Steve looked so old and tired. “Easier.” Said Steve simply.]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [charlesdk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlesdk/gifts).



> *smooches cheek* Happy Birthday, Charlie <3

**October 1927**

Sarah Rogers loves her boys. Boys, plural. Because the little Bucky Barnes might as well as be hers, for how much time he spent in her tiny one-bedroom flat in Brooklyn in Steve’s company.

Steve rarely goes to play at the Barnes’ because little Bucky’s mama is afraid of something happening to Steve and not being able to help him through it if one of his attacks hits again. So Winifred sends Bucky to her, instead.

Sarah doesn’t mind. Actually, she prefers it much better this way, ‘cause she can keep an eye on her Steve when they’re there, or be sure that Bucky will be able to help his best friend easily if he needs to find something to make Steve feel better when she’s at work.

Sometimes she wonders how Bucky came to be in their lives. She just knew that one day her son had gone out to play –promising that he won’t tire his lungs too much – and next, he’d come back with Bucky practically already attached to his hip.

Mind you, she is grateful for having him in Steve’s life, at least now her son would have someone to look after him when she couldn’t be there, and someone that also loves him as fiercely in their own way, all without making Steve feel smothered in too much care – mistake of which Sarah is sometimes guilty.

Except this time.

It has been raining for quite a few days now, the patter of the rain against the windows a dull and constant sound in the background. The boys couldn’t go play outside, even if some kids from the neighbourhood still did, screaming and laughing as they played in the courtyard below. Sarah had expected them to ask, beg her even to go join them but they didn’t. Steve’s condition was plain enough to make even the slightest notion of it inconsiderable, and in his boredom – and in an attempt to try to distract his best friend (even if it meant being an absolute nuisance) – Bucky had started to list each and every of Steve’s prescriptions and pausing long enough for Steve to say if he’d taken them or not.

Of course, the answer for all was yes, or they would’ve known by now, simply by Steve not being able to breathe properly or Steve having a high fever or Steve having pains in his body –or all of the above.

Steve keeps rolling his eyes at every drug name, but dutifully answers nonetheless, no wonder knowing full well his best friend’s intentions.

Bucky is at the foot of the small, lumpy, brown couch, leaning his back to it lazily. His hands splayed in front of him as he kept count of Steve’s drug list on his fingers, a slight crease between his brows, as he concentrated to remember the elaborate names.

Steve is sprawled on the couch upside down, his head hanging from the seat cushions, lolling a little far back every time he rolled his eyes.

Sarah, drying her hands on a washcloth looks at them with a small, amused smile, takes pity on his son, and after rolling her eyes, too, at yet another drug name uttered by his son’s best friend, she calls them to her attention.

“Boys.”

Both of them snap their attention to her. “Yes, ma?” Steve looks at her enquiringly, still upside down.

“Would you like to learn how to build a fort?”

Both of the boys’ reaction is satisfying, to say the least, as Bucky straightened up and Steve rolled to sit on his knees, both with sparkling interest. “A fort?” Bucky asks in a slightly awed manner, “what sort of fort?”

Sarah smiles, pleased. “A pillow-fort.”

Steve cocks his head to a side, considering it and Bucky frowns.

Sarah laughs then, and walks towards them with a big smile. “Come now, I’ll show you.”

She instructs them on what sort of materials they could use to build a pillow-fort and watches amusedly as Bucky tells her son: “You wait here. I’ll build the fort for you, now.” Sarah snorts when she catches Steve’s expression before he explodes.

“I’m no princess who’s gonna wait around here, Buck!” he shoves at his best friend. “I wanna build the fort too!”

Bucky seems momentarily taken aback, looking at Steve surprised, a hand on his chest where Steve had pushed him. Then, his confusion clears as he smiles good-naturedly and nods, “al’ight,” he says, grabbing the cushions on the couch and pushing them unceremoniously at Steve.

Steve grins, hurrying to put the cushion on the floor to start building the walls of the fort.

While they build the fort, Sarah watches Bucky who’s focused on Steve with a thoughtful look on his face. Probably because he is still so young, and still hasn’t learned to mask what he is thinking, she easily read him.

First, he’d looked at Steve as he were someone different. Then he’d probably realised that his best friend had always hated being told what to do on principle, and especially if he’d felt he was being coddled. Steve had no patience with bullies, something that (sighing) Sarah knew all too well, but he’d always seemed to have a rather large dispense for where Bucky was involved. He’d never shoved at his best friend like that – usually they did the shoving together towards bullies – if ever, only playfully (to which Bucky never retaliated in the like). That’s why he’d been caught off guard by Steve’s sudden frustration, Sarah thinks.

Now, as that realisation seems to dawn on him, he looks at Steve for what Sarah could only describe as deep fondness. His eyes soft and tinged with pride.

Sarah heard her breath leave in a whoosh, the sudden urge to gather Bucky Barnes in her arms and kiss his hair almost overwhelming. Instead, she closes her eyes and leaned back on the rocking chair she was perched upon. She let the boy’s voices wash over her.

“It’s like a cave!”

“A cave-fort!”

She seldom has a day off from work – mostly because she herself demanded extra shifts to cover all the bills –but when she had one, this was exactly how she loved to spend it. Her boys close-by, filling their tiny home with excited voices and happy giggles.

As it always should be.

 

**December 1932**

It’s nearly Christmas and Bucky had just got out from his last day of school before the holidays.

Brooklyn is covered in frost, and while it’s a pretty sight, the ice on the sidewalks also presents a life-hazard one; so far he’d slipped and caught is footing just in time for the fifth time that day.

 _Thank God, Steve stayed at home._ Not that his best friend was stranger to cuts and bruises (to Bucky’s extreme frustration) but he was grateful whenever his best friend was spared; he was sure that Steve would’ve fallen all five times and more if he’d gone out today. Not to mention the ear-numbing wind that was cutting at Bucky’s face; he shuddered as he thought of that time Steve had stayed at home for a week because of earache that in the end had damaged even more his already partial hearing. _Thank god he stayed at home,_ indeed _._

His silent remark, though, seemed to come short when he opened the front door of the Rogers’ flat with the spare key Sarah had given him. As soon as he set foot inside, closing the door behind him, he felt little difference from the air outside; he could see frost clouds of his own breath in front of him, and a look in Steve’s direction confirmed that the situation was pretty much the same.

“Oh.” He said, feeling his stomach drop.

The radiator had broken down again, Sarah had mentioned it that morning when they had crossed paths while he’d went to school and her to the hospital, and somehow he’d forgotten it. He was sure Sarah had already found a way to arrange someone to come repair it, god knows with what money, but even so that meant that Steve would have to get through without it for an entire day, at the very least.

He silently cursed their poverty for the twentieth time that week, and took a good look at his best friend. Beside to where he was sitting on the couch, Steve had a pile of hastily gathered blankets – no wonder left by Sarah before she had left.

Stevie also hadn’t glanced his way once after he’d entered, choosing to continue to glare at the hastily gathered blankets like they had personally offended him, not making any move to try and cover himself with them, even if Bucky could clearly see by the goose-bumps on his uncovered skin that he was cold.

Bucky sighed, internally and looked at his best friend with fond exasperation mingled with a sense of overwhelming protectiveness.

The little punk was so god damn stubborn that, of course he’d do that. Keep himself well far from something that’s supposed to protect his shitty health, as if he could just make his body stop needing it from his sheer force of will.

Bucky knew all too well what Steve’s force of will could do, and he’d wished more than once for it to work on his health, too. So far they’ve been unlucky.

He raked his brain for some way to keep Steve warm, without him realising what was happening.

Something was wrong (more wrong than a broken radiator); he could see it in Steve’s rigid posture, the scowl, the way he was clenching and unclenching his fists –like he were preparing for a fight- and especially in the way he was refusing to acknowledge Bucky’s presence. And he _knew_ that if he didn’t thread carefully there would be a shouting match real soon.

He started by not saying anything at all. Forcing himself to ignore Steve in return, as he went to his room and carried the spare bedsheets in the living room.

To his enormous relief, it worked. “What are you doing?” Steve asked, even if a little begrudgingly.

Bucky turned from where he was trying to pull the sheets taut between two chairs, and shrugged. “We haven’t built a fort in a while. I miss ‘em.”

Steve reduced his eyes into slits, looking at him suspiciously, but Bucky ignored him, turning back to the fort.

A while later, he’d taken most of the blankets and a couple of cushions on the floor, and kept a couple of blankets to cover themselves with. His fort was ready.

He eyed at it pretty pleased with himself, and when he turned to look at Steve he found him looking a bit sheepish.

“Looks cosy.”

Bucky grinned. “Only one way to find out,” and with a flourish, he held open the flap to enter the fort.

Steve rolled his eyes, but Bucky could see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips and covertly preened a little to himself.

He followed him inside and Steve let out a pleased “oof,” when he hit the blankets and buried his face into the pillows. Bucky gently laid a blanket over his back, making sure to cover his feet too.

The fort was closed on one side and open from the other, to make sure that while they were cosy and warm enough, Steve had fresh air to breathe, too.

Later, when Steve was drawing by the light of their old oil-lamp, and Bucky was dozing off by his side, Steve said, “I went looking for a job…”

Bucky didn’t move and didn’t open his eyes, but he couldn’t help the way he stiffened. Steve, being so close to him –actually pressed side by side – had to have felt it too, and while usually that meant a stiffening on his part and angry, frustrated words to be thrown at each other in less than the time to say “god damn”, this time he just sighed and closed his sketchbook. Bucky opened his eyes and just looked at him.

“No one took me of course, they all know who I am… ‘Sarah’s sickly one,’” he smiled, small and bitter. “’Can’t take you, too small, too weak, too sick, too much of a hassle.’” He shrugged, “I know they’re right, seems all I’m good for is being a burd-”

“Don’t you say it, Rogers.” Bucky spat through his teeth, “or I swear on all that’s holy imma kick your ass until you take it all back.”

Steve clenched his jaw and looked away.

“It’s not true.” Bucky insisted, “al’right? It’s utter bullshit. What do you think it’d be like for your ma? Huh? Me?”

Steve turned to look at him straight in the eye, and Bucky barely caught the hitch in his breath; Steve looked so old and tired. “Easier.” Said Steve simply.

 _You break my heart._ That’s what Bucky wanted to tell him, cause that’s what it felt like, knowing that Steve felt like that about himself, just a goddamn burden for his ma and his best friend.

“You’re wrong.” Bucky said instead, trying to keep his voice as firm as he could manage. “Dammit, Steve,” his voice shook, and finally, it broke, “you don’t get it, how can you not get it?”

“ _Buck_ ,”

And _god fucking dammit_ that’s all it always took for Bucky to cave in. Just his name, uttered by his best friend, in _that_ tone, and Bucky Barnes was done for. “Shut up.” Bucky rubbed at his eyes, angrily and glared up at Steve’s helpless look. “If you think that, you’re even more stupid than I already thought you were, you’re a complete moron. Do you understand, Rogers?”

“Bucky-”

“I asked you a question.” Bucky interrupted him, “do you understand?”

Steve sighed. “Yeah,”

“You better,” he pulled the blanket tighter around him and glared at Steve. “Come in here and sleep, I’m tired.”

And it said a lot on how much seeing Bucky losing it had unsettled Steve enough to comply without raising any kind of objection. _Good_. Bucky thought, viciously. _Let him hurt for every time he breaks my heart with shitty thoughts like that. Maybe at some point, he’ll learn to hurt as soon as he thinks them._

“Don’t you ever say something like that again, Steve.” Bucky said again, as Steve settled in the warmth beside him, nudging his feet to Bucky’s.

“I promise.” Steve breathed, and Bucky… well, there’s really nothing he wouldn’t have done for Steve, even if the little punk had broken his heart, again.

Bucky pulled Steve’s feet between his and warmed them.

 

**October 1936**

“We looked for you after… my folks wanted to give you a ride at the cemetery.”

“I know, I’m sorry, it’s-” Steve sighed, “I kinda wanted to be alone…”

“How was it?”

“S’okay, she’s next to dad.”

“I was gonna ask,”

“I know what you’re gonna say, Buck, I just-” he sighed, again, looking for the key in his coat pocket.

“We can put the couch cushions on the floor, like when we were kids. It’ll be fun, all you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash.”

 _Shit_.

But of course, when he turned, Bucky was already bending down to take out the spare key under the brick. “C’mon.”

Steve looked down at the key in his hand. He felt tired to his bones, and he didn’t want to make Bucky go, but his ma was dead, and… fuck he can’t be a burden to his best friend, now. “Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own.”

And of course, because Bucky was Bucky, he said, “the thing is… you don’t have to.” He reached out to grab at Steve’s shoulder, and Steve looked at him, his throat closing up, already knowing what was to come.

“I’m with you till the end of the line, pal.”

He looked down, blinking the wetness in his eyes, and exhaling to get rid of the knots in his throat. He smiled, looking up at Bucky. “I know,”

It seemed to satisfy Bucky immensely, as he smiled back big and said, “good! So, you know you’ll never get rid of me.”

They stepped inside the apartment, and Steve tried not to get too choked up as his ma’s traces all around their home were still very present: her kitchen mittens on the small dining table, her simple blue dress still hanging on her bedroom door, and her hair pins in the old wooden box on the stool beside the front door.

“The old man is always telling how I should already be out of the house, so I could come live here with you,” he paused, “or we could see around for a new place, start fresh.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed, again. He really wasn’t in the mood for this, he just wanted to go lie down and not get up for a while.

Bucky seemed to have already caught on, as he put the cushions on the floor and cover it all with the bed sheets.

Steve raised an eyebrow, Bucky raised it back, but that was all the resistance Steve could muster, so after, he didn’t hesitate to step out of his shoes and climb inside their childhood fort, Bucky following not long after.

“Do you want your sketchbook?” Bucky asked, turning on his side so he could face him.

“I just-” Steve shook his head, “I just wanna lay here.”

“Okay.”

-

He came to, slowly. There was an ache in his chest that for a moment he didn’t understand. His eyes filled as soon as he turned his head and found Bucky already looking at him with the saddest eyes Steve had ever seen on him.

Bucky knew how much Steve hated being felt sorry for, so he’d never looked that way. Even a few hours ago, when he’d invited himself in and built the fort, he’d tried hard to look chipper for Steve’s sake, but after Steve had fallen asleep, he just couldn’t keep the mask on.

And even now, Steve saw that what was in his best friend’s eyes wasn’t pity, but something that went far beyond the words Steve could think of. Bucky was looking at him like he, more than anything, wanted to help him, knowing deep to his bones that there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Steve, but at the same time felt completely helpless, because he didn’t know _what_ he could do.

Steve didn’t know what he wanted Bucky to do either. He just wanted the pain to go away.

He just wanted to be held.

“Buck,”

It was tinny and half sobbed, but it was enough for Bucky to understand what Steve needed.

He gathered Steve in his arms, against his chest, and Steve broke down, shaking and sobbing shamelessly, in Bucky’s embrace. Steve could feel him shake, too. Bucky was crying with him.

-

The second time he came to, again, it was in Bucky’s warmth and he felt relatively calmer, a little better.

He curled up on his side, facing away from Bucky. “I’m alone,” he said in a small voice, almost, just to try it out.

“No, you’re not,” Bucky curled around him, pulling him firmly against his body. “I’m here.”

And that, for some reason hurt more than anything else, and Steve felt a primal need for Bucky to remain that way, almost as if he didn’t, he knew something terrible would happen.

“Promise me.” Steve said, almost breathless for how hard his heart was slamming in his chest. “Promise me,” he repeated, lower, turning to face him.

Bucky adjusted to the new position, his forehead wrinkling a little. He traced Steve’s freckles in silence for a while, before he looked Steve in the eyes and promised.

“I promise, till the end of the line, I promise.”

 

**August 2017**

Bucky has nightmares every night once he gets out from cryo.

Steve managed to find a way to get out all the shit that Hydra put in his brain. So, now he couldn’t be used as a soulless weapon. But that doesn’t change the fact that Bucky _did_ all those terrible things, and that he remembers doing them.

These days it’s always a repetition of the same array of three to five dreams, with a few details changing once in a while.

Sometimes, it’s about someone that he doesn’t know, but that he kills; a man, a woman, a boy. He doesn’t know them, but he kills them every time.

Sometimes, he dreams about the moments before and during a wiping; his body clenches on itself, shakes and breaks out in a cold sweat; he has to remember to breathe when he comes back to reality.

Other times, he dreams of someone taking control of him again and making him kill all of Steve’s friends, sometimes it’s Sam, sometimes Natalia, other times it’s T’challa.

The ones that make him wake up either howling in pain or with so much pent-up rage that he wants to kill anything near him, are about Steve.

He dreams of killing Steve, and when that happens he wakes up with the sensation of being choked to death, and feeling like all that is still good in him was drained out of him; like there’s no reason for his existence any more. His body hurts all over, his heart hurts most, though, when he wakes up from it.

The worst of the lot, though.

The worst is the one where Steve hasn’t taken the serum, yet. He’s still small, fragile and with the righteous anger that Bucky always loved and admired so much.

That’s the worst because he dreams of Hydra taking them both. He dreams of Hydra putting Steve on the wiping chair, and him having to just stand there watching and having to let it happen, as Steve’s body, already weakened from birth, trashes and shakes as they torture him.

Steve is wrapped around him every time he wakes up. He’s always there, pinning him down with his weight, telling him who he is, when and where he was born, and where they were now, anchoring him; he tells stories about their childhood, whispers them and strokes his hair back until Bucky feels his body unclench.

“Did I hurt you?” Is always the first thing Bucky asks, and every time Steve shakes his head.

Even if it’s a lie.

Bucky doesn’t let Steve come to bed with him, when they go to sleep. He doesn’t want to, or well. He wants, but he’s scared shitless of doing somethings to Steve in his sleep. But of course, Steve, somehow, always manages to crawl in bed with him every time he has a bad dream. It’s like he has a sixth sense for when Bucky is having a nightmare. Maybe he does, after all isn’t that what they do? Always knowing when one of them needs the other, and knowing, somehow, exactly what they need?

He doesn’t have the strength to push Steve out the bed when he wakes up from a nightmare, he feels too raw and having Steve’s body pressed against his own, he thinks, it’s the only thing that keeps him from losing it altogether.

So, he doesn’t push him away, no. He wraps Steve’s arms around his middle and pushes his body against Steve’s, takes comfort in feeling Steve’s heartbeat against his back, in having Steve’s fingers trace loopy patterns on the back of his hand, and in Steve tracing his lips alongside his neck, not quite kissing, but almost. And in that moment, he feels at peace.

-

Usually, Steve is there until he wakes up in the morning, always wrapped around Bucky like a goddamn octopus, and Bucky loves it. But today, Steve’s not there, the sheets hold the imprint of Steve’s body, but they’re not warm anymore, and Bucky sits up, looking around confused for a moment, until he hears Steve moving around in the living room; he knows it’s Steve, simply because he’s known the guy his whole life, and he’d recognise Steve’s sounds anywhere.

He’s alert enough, but he’s tired from a string of not-quite-resting nights, and he knows he’s safe here, so it takes him some time to properly wake up.

He rubs at his eyes as he pads out the room and into the living room. He stops, though, when he sees Steve kneeling on the polished floorboards, adjusting some twinkling lights over a large, white bedsheet that were made to look like some kind of tent.

“Good morning,” Steve says, looking around at him, with a small smile.

Bucky blinks at him.

He remembers the day Sarah, showed them how to make a pillow fort, remembers all the times he built them to comfort Steve. And for some reason, for a moment, he’s surprised Steve would build one for him.

But of course he would, why wouldn’t he? Steve loves him as much as Bucky loves him back, he knows, he remembers. And that for some reason, breaks his heart, not for him, but for Steve.

“Wanna go in?”

Bucky focuses back on Steve, he looks nervous, like he thinks Bucky wouldn’t like this.

_Stupid punk, always doubting himself for the dumbest shit._

“Seems cosy enough,” Bucky drawls. “Why not?” he gives him a lazy smile, and marvels at the brightness of the smile Steve gives him back.

-

They spend the entire day inside the pillow fort, in the same way they always did.

Steve reads or draws (mainly Bucky), and Bucky alternates from dozing off to watching Steve as he draws; Steve would blush and duck his head every time he caught him, it was the most adorable thing in the universe, especially considering that the dude was ninety-nine years old.

“You’re cute when you blush,” Bucky says, because he just can’t resist.

“Fuck off,” Steve scowls.

Bucky chuckles softly, reaching with his flesh arm, and wrapping it around Steve’s thigh.

Steve pauses, but says nothing when Bucky rests his head there, and dozes off again.

-

He wakes up to fingers running through his hair, it’s possibly his favourite way to wake up to. It means Steve is right there, with him.

It’s dark inside now, the only light is coming from somewhere in the tent, but for a moment he can’t quite place it. Because there are stars all around them.

“It’s called a star master,” Steve tells him, feeling Bucky look around.

Steve takes the opportunity to slide under the blankets – having been sitting the whole time Bucky had fallen asleep on his thigh – when Bucky sits up to admire at the millions of tiny stars reflected all over their pillow fort.

Bucky snuggles right back against him, soon enough, though.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Bucky hummed his agreement, too busy trying to count the stars.

“It’s just a cheap copy of the real thing, and yet.” Steve’s sighs, “still, makes you feel so small. There’s a whole universe out there and we’re just tiny grains of sand compared to it. Our entire life stories, everything we fought for, what are they, compared to what’s out there?”

“They’re everything.” Bucky tells him, turning to look at him. “Steve, they mean everything,” he repeats, clasping at Steve’s shoulder. “Cuz we’re here, now. Who gives a shit of what’s out there? Huh? We can’t go there, we can’t change it, we can’t control it. We can just admire how pretty it is, and give a shit of what happens to us here, now.”

“I know,” Steve tells him. He frowns, and then shakes his head, “I know, I wasn’t saying… it’s stupid.”

And there it is again. The sixth sense that told him Steve needs him. He thinks of that morning, of how seeing Steve building the fort, broke his heart. The thought of Steve always fighting for what is right, trying to protect what’s truly important, fighting to live, he’s been doing it since the day he was born, always fighting. That’s what’s breaking Bucky’s heart.

“Aren’t you tired?” Bucky asks, “of fighting?”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a while, just pulls Bucky closer and rests his head under Bucky’s chin.

“I am,” it’s small and whispered, and Bucky hears it only because he knows to expect it.

He rubs Steve’s back. “Then, stop.”

“What if that’s all I’m good for? What if I don’t know what to do anything else?”

“That’s bullshit, Rogers.” Bucky dipped down his chin to look at him, “you’re not just a soldier, Steve. You’ve been one for some time, but you’re not just that. You always wanted to fight for what’s right, and probably always will, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have the life you dreamt of having some day. It’s not too late, if you still want that. You always tell _me_ that. You don’t have to fight every battle, it’s okay if you’re tired.”

“Do you think we really could?”

“Yes.” Or he’d be damned, he’s gonna fight tooth and nail to let Steve have that. He doesn’t tell Steve that, though.

Bucky feels Steve breathe in deeply, exhale, and then Steve looks up at him with a small smile. “So, what do you say to build a bigger fort with me?”

Bucky traces the freckles on Steve’s nose, before he smiles and tells him, “seems like a pretty solid plan to me, sweetheart.”

Steve blushes, ducks his head and then looks back up at him with another of his brightest smiles, and Bucky knows what he’s gonna dream of, next time his brain is nice enough to make him remember something nice.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://atticuos.tumblr.com/)


End file.
